The meeting with Transylvania will mark the final preseason competition for the Cats, before UK travels to Brooklyn, N.Y., to open the Barclays Center with a season-opening contest against Maryland on Friday.

Scouting Transylvania

Transylvania is favored to repeat as Heartland Conference champions in 2012-13 under 12-year head coach Brian Lane. The Pioneers claimed the HCAC a season ago and advanced to the NCAA Division III National Championship following a 23-5 overall record in 2012-13.

This marks the second-straight season the two teams will square off in Rupp Arena during exhibition action.

The two teams played for the first time in 100 years last fall, with Transy leaping to an 11-4 lead before eventually falling 97-53 to UK.

Tate Cox led Transy in last year's game with 15 points, Barrett Meyer added 13, and Ethan Spurlin notched 12. Brandon Rash netted eight points. Spurlin was named HCAC Player of the Year and was a third-team All-American to lead the trio returning in 2012-13.

Media Opportunity - November 4, 2012

Coach Calipari

On what they’ve been working on … “We’ve done some toughness drills, some rebounding drills, a lot of defense, different things to offensively get them to understand the timing and spacing; that it’s just as important as what you do with your offense, is you time it right and you’re spaced right so we did all that kind of stuff. We went Friday and then we went once yesterday, we went long yesterday, yesterday may have been the longest we’ve gone since I’ve been the coach here. We probably went two hours and 40 minutes and some pre-practice stuff, probably another 20 minutes with that before I came down. It was a long one and we’ll go twice today.”

On drills focusing on winning … “We have to set a tone of how we play. We have guys that you see start backing up, you just, OK, losers; this is what’s happening to the loser. Whether it’s an offensive or defensive drill, one of you two are running, either it’s the offense or the defense. What I’m saying to them, to really improve you’ve got to make yourself uncomfortable, you have to make yourself uncomfortable at practice. If you’re not willing to do that, I will and I’ll do it however I have to make you uncomfortable. I already told you guys, I never leave practice where I’m ticked off by myself. Everybody in the building will be ticked off when I walk out of the gym, if I’m mad. If I’m mad, they’re all mad. I’m just trying to work on guys and trying to get, Kyle (Wiltjer) has got to get better, Ryan (Harrow) has got to get better. Archie (Goodwin) has got to play with a better pace, Alex (Poythress) has got to work on his motor; we’ve got to have our bigs focused on every possession. We don’t talk enough right now, we still give up on possessions. In tough rebounding situations we’re not coming up with balls, we’re not going to be bigger than everyone we play so we’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m just trying to take this a step at a time, and I’m staying in the moment, where are we right now? We’ve gotten better. Where do we need to go? That’s when you start losing sleep. Oh my gosh, we don’t have a zone offense in yet, I haven’t done any zone or (zone) defense. Two possessions they made a three and I said that’s it, let’s stop.”

On an intensity change as the games get closer … “They have a sense of urgency but that’s just so, you think about it, they’ve got a lot of things that have to register in their mind, they have to respond to it, they’ve got to react. So they’re doing that and then they’re thinking about playing hard. So sometimes that gets them to stop because they’re thinking about, where am I supposed to go? Where, before, they did whatever they wanted to do and they were the best player. Now you have to play with our team. Last night, Alabama-LSU (football game), if one guy made a mistake on that last series they lost the game. There was a responsibility for every player on the team to do their job and then the defense had to do their job and they won in a place they’ve never won. That’s why they are No. 1 in the country. The best thing to happen to Alabama was they went down to a team late in the game; now let’s see what we’re made of. That’s why you train like that; you sweat now so that you don’t bleed later.”

On Transylvania … “They’ve got most of their guys back; Brian (Lane) does a great job. I watched the tape from last year, 17-17, 19-17, 21-19 and then we got a little gap before half and you’re up 12 or whatever it was and then kind of wore them down in the second half. But the thing that hit me in the face is that team won the national title, we must really roll out balls. That team that I saw right there, won the national title. Anthony Davis was the No. 1 pick, Olympic Gold Medalist and getting 20 a game in the NBA, he couldn’t score on Transylvania, he couldn’t get it in the basket. We won the national title and that was our first or second outing which is kind of crazy.”

On the team’s effort for Superstorm Sandy relief … “As you sit and you watch the whole thing, I have many friends and family from New York and called a bunch of people to make sure they were alight. You sit there and you think what can you do and how can you help. A lot of times you need a nudge. A few years ago with Haiti, a guy called me and says we have to do something. This year Wayne Martin (GM WKYT) calls me. He said, ‘Cal, are you thinking of doing anything for the victims of this horrible storm?’ and I said we have been thinking and we have been trying to think (what to do). I said why don’t we do what we did (with Haiti). So we started the process yesterday. We are going to do it Wednesday. We are going to do it for an hour. The phone banks are going to be open for 24 hours. We’ve got some great ideas of either things to bid on, or you know if you give this amount of money we can give them different things. When we did this with Haiti, 70,000 calls came in. They couldn’t take them all. 2,000 got answered, so we are hopefully going to make it to where when you call in, somewhere it will get answered. We have matching funds. I don’t want to give you the total number, but it is well into six figures that I have made phone calls and received commitments from people, so that when people give money it will be matched by another donation. This was devastating. When I saw the stuff in Queens, it reminded me of the neighborhood that I grew up in and the people I grew up with. When you look at what happened in Seaside, you may think, ‘Well Seaside is all these beach and wealthy people …’ No. I have been to Seaside. I have been to Ocean Beach, all that area. Those are working-class people whose properties, in most people, were passed down. They were all fishing communities. So you saw how they were whipped out, those are older buildings, older structures. Those were working-class people who had a place left in their families for at least 80 percent of those people. So, I am excited about it. I think again, we are trying to get our former players, guys in the NBA involved. Our team will answer the phones and we will bring in some celebrities, and have some celebrities come in. We only have an hour. I didn’t want to make it more than that. People say, ‘Well, you have a game Saturday.’ Well, when you’re in the seat I am in, that is true, but I think you cheat the position if you don’t (help out). If we are able to do something and raise a ton of money for these people and these victims, you have to do it. It’s not an option. People say, ‘You play Friday against Maryland!’ Yeah, it’s big, I know it is; but I think what we are doing here is bigger. What we are letting our players understand is, it’s bigger.”

On what he needs to improve on from the first exhibition … “I just need to assert myself a little bit more offensively, keep playing hard and keep it going defensively by blocking some more shots.”

On what the team needs to work on after the first exhibition … “We just need to work on our execution and staying focused through times of fatigue in the game. I thought we played well for a first game like that. I think as the season goes on, we will just continue to get better on execution.”

On if fans should expect multiple different lineups again … “Yeah, Coach Cal has been working on it everyday with all the different lineups. I think we will be able to improve on the execution within those lineups. Every lineup is different; you have to know a couple of different spots.”

On correcting things in practice after a win … “We kind of went into the game knowing that we were going to have to correct some things. It was our first game, and we really weren’t ready to play from a defensive stand point. Going into it, we knew that he (Coach Calipari) was going to tell us stuff that we did wrong and would have to correct before we start getting into the season.”

On having a sense of urgency with the season starting in less than a week … “The focus is better. Yesterday was probably one of our best practices and one of the longest. Our focus is getting better because after that game, we can see what we have to work on and all of the bad habits we have to break.”

On being in the lineup at the same time as Nerlens Noel … “It’s getting a lot better. We are getting a better feel for how each other play. We play entirely different. Now we can see the strengths that he has, the strengths that I have, and what we can do together. It just makes it that much more difficult to guard us. Offensively, once we figure out everything, it is going to be hard to stop us.”

On preparing the younger teammates for the start of the season … “We just take it one day at a time. We have been working real hard. I was impressed with how we played on Thursday against Northwood. That was the first time any of these guys have played with each other against another team. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was pretty impressed with how we played.”

On how his family is doing in regards to the weather in the New England area … “My family is alright. My family and friends made it out fine. Back north didn’t really get hit as bad as the south. My brother’s house down the shore took a hit pretty bad. As far as up north, everything turned out okay.”

On his initial feelings when hearing about the storms … “I heard about it the day before and I didn’t really look into it too much. Whatever happens, happens. I didn’t really think it was going to be as bad as it was. I’m always so busy here so that helped keep my mind off of it. It kept me occupied, but every chance that I could get I was calling my parents to make sure everything was alright.”

On his thoughts about UK holding a telethon for Hurricane Sandy victims … “It means a lot because it just shows that people all around the country care and that everyone is trying to help. It means a lot that so many people care and are showing their support.”